"Let us be proud of being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame."

Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder-blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine, the wick really runs through the whole length of the candle.-Vladimir Nabokov, Cornell lectures on literature, Charles Dickens, Bleak House